


Goodbye yellow brick road

by curiosa



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: All the Stilinski feels, Family Relationships - Freeform, Gen, Heartbreak, why is season three b so mean
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-15
Updated: 2014-02-15
Packaged: 2018-01-12 12:22:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,415
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1186161
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/curiosa/pseuds/curiosa
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John finds himself making promises.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Goodbye yellow brick road

**Author's Note:**

> For fic purposes the Sheriff is called John, which I think is fandom's choice until we actually get something better than Sheriff or Papa Stilinski. This all came about from [this on my tumblr.](http://ribbonedcuriosa.tumblr.com/post/76321411278/omg-guys-teen-wolf-this-episode-i-have-all-the) I'm so so sorry.

It's a death sentence.

That's the only way that John can look at it as his son lays back against the padding of the MRI machine and Melissa curls her hand around his own tightly. She's got one arm still wrapped around her own body, pressed against her waist as if she can hold back the tiding of bad news that John knows is coming, Stiles knows is coming, maybe even Melissa the way that she's holding herself and John's hand so tightly.

John finds himself making promises. If he keeps standing throughout the whole scan, Stiles will be just fine. If he can keep his breathing even and calm, whatever this is, what's got a hold of his son, they'll be able to fix it. He used to do this all the time with Claudia. Bargaining. If he solved his next case before the end of the day, Claudia would have a few sentient hours with her family. If he filled in for Gary over the weekend, Claudia wouldn't have any incidents and Stiles would get a full nights worth of sleep. If he could make it through the lights before they turned red, she'd walk right back out of the hospital just one more time and everything would go back to normal. 

The thing with making bargains is that sometimes it works out and sometimes it just doesn't. The fact that he's spent the last few years sleeping alone in his bed and single handedly taking care of their kid only serves to prove this. 

The truth is after so long, however hard you push yourself, your luck has to run out at some point.

John's kind of sick of his running permanently on empty.

He met Claudia when she was nineteen and he was twenty two. This bright, young woman who was so full of life that John just had to be near her all the time, as much as possible. He's not told many people this, well except Stiles, because god love him, all the parts of John that he has picked up tend to be all the worst bits. But in his youth John was never very much good with speaking to the ladies, at least not the ones he wanted to get to know a little. All he's saying is that the uniform goes a long way into why he gets any second glances or those occasional shy looks, the kind that used to make Claudia curl her hands into possessive fists in his shirt, pulling him closer towards her. There's a reason he's never offered up advice in Stiles' dogged pursuit of the Martin girl; he really hasn't anything smooth or worldly to offer. 

In the end it was Claudia who asked him out first, dating for over half a year before he brought her home to meet his parents. His dad spent one evening with his girl before he offered John the best piece of advice he's ever been given. 

She's a keeper that one, make sure you keep a tight hold of her. 

And goddamn it, John had tried his best and she'd still managed to slip away from him.

She was so smart that she used to help him with his case files, the cold cases that the older guys would shove off on the new, young eager guy to try and kick him into place. Files that had been sitting there for months, years even maybe. The two of them pouring over folders late into the night, Claudia keeping them awake with coffee, until between the two of them they could make some sort of semblance out of all the information. Stiles has picked up that side from her, the sneaky one, the one that always ensures he's poking his nose into places it doesn't belong, getting him into trouble. She'd be encouraging him if she was still around, the same way she'd sat with him snug on her knee over breakfast, sounding out learning words in his ear over soggy cereal and toast soldiers. 

The thing is Stiles is so much like Claudia sometimes that it hurts him. The way that he smiles and is ever ready to bark out a laugh. The way that he snuffles in his sleep and hogs all of the covers. The way that he insists on John taking better care of himself, encouraging him to take the healthy option when what they both know he really wants is the double cheeseburger and fries with extra relish. Oh, John's wise enough to see this for what it is, half Claudia's needling side coming out of their son and half the ever present fear that if he doesn't keep an eye on him all of the time he could end up losing not just one but both of his parents.

It's unhealthy is what it is. John's supposed to be the one doing the worrying. The one who stays up all night until he knows his son is safely tucked up in bed.

John's been extra careful since he found out the truth about the whole supernatural state of things, made sure to check that Stiles is safe in his own bed. That when he says he's staying at Scott's he actually is instead of out roaming the neighbourhood for dead bodies or anything particularly hairy or snarly. It's why when the night terrors start John's right there to bring Stiles back to reality, fingers digging into his shoulder as his own son screams terrified into his face. That he's wide awake the first time he hears the creaky step on the stairway, to turn him back towards his own bed when the sleepwalking starts to take place.

John remembers the way that those first few months Claudia just refused to go to sleep. How she'd beg him to talk to her late into the night just to help her stay awake, not wanting to face whatever it was that lay waiting for her in her own head. He's caught Stiles watching late night television, eyes a raw red but still changing the channel or upping the volume in an attempt to keep himself awake.

He starts making the list when the hallucinations start. When it becomes clear that Stiles, his precious son, is starting to become confused of who he is.

He used to write out notes for Claudia, the days she felt lucid enough to start henpecking him, as if she knew that any day she could get lost inside her own mind, confined inside of it. Making him write out lists of how to use everything in the kitchen, what Stiles would need next year for school, telling him what she'd tell Stiles herself if she could. 

Then all too soon it was just the two of them. John and Stiles, and no amount of lists seemed capable of filling the hole that Claudia could.

You know in life you're told that if you do it right and you're lucky you'll find somebody to love you. That maybe one day you'll get married, have some kids, grow old together and watch that kid have some more kids hopefully. That one day you'll look back on your life and it won't be the successes in work or career that impress you, but the memories and photographs of your family that surround you.

The truth is Claudia would have been so so proud of their little man. It might be selfish, but John wants to keep a tight hold of him for just a little bit longer. Claudia can wait a bit longer, can't she?

Scott walks out the room and the machine starts to whir into life behind him. Melissa watches her son leave, fingers tightening around John's hand as they both watch the machine swallow Stiles up inside of it. 

Melissa tries to smile at him but it falters and he can feel the minute shaking of her hand wrapped around his own fingers. They've not done bad, John thinks. They've made their own little family over the years, like a jigsaw puzzle piece fitting inside another, one that Claudia would be damn proud of, and John's come to think of Scott like his own just as much as he's sure Melissa thinks of Stiles like the second son she never had either.

John's glad for that fact. He's not sure he's strong enough alone to watch another member of his family deteriorate away from him.


End file.
